The station will be the first domestic device in modern Russia on a natural satellite of the Earth
MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/. The LUNA-25 automatic station will be launched in July, and the Russian-European ExoMars mission will be launched in September next year. This was announced by the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin on the air of Channel One.
"Next year, in July, we are planning a mission to the Moon (Luna-25). <...> Well, September is our ExoMars, a nine-month mission to Mars," Rogozin said.
As the head of Roscosmos explained to TASS, the launch is scheduled for May-July. "July is preferable in terms of energy. This is not a transfer, but a choice of the optimal time," he stressed.
Earlier, the press service of Roscosmos TASS reported on the postponement of the launch of LUNA-25 from October 2021 to May 2022. According to the head of Roscosmos, the launch window opens in May and ends in October.
The automatic station will be the first domestic device in modern Russia on a natural satellite of the Earth. The Luna-26 mission should be launched in 2024, Luna-27 in 2025, Luna-28 in 2027-2028.
The launch of the second half of the ExoMars mission was originally scheduled for 2018, but later the launch of the European rover and the Russian landing platform kAzachok was postponed to 2020 and 2022. It is planned to send them into space using a Proton-M carrier rocket with a BRIZ-M upper stage from the Baikonur cosmodrome.